


Big Sur, Golden Hour

by morphogenesis



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:42:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25107169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphogenesis/pseuds/morphogenesis
Summary: Max wants to believe that someday everything will be okay.
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price
Kudos: 6
Collections: Little Black Dress Exchange 2020





	Big Sur, Golden Hour

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flowerdragon13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerdragon13/gifts).



> Happy exchange! Title from "Big Sur, Golden Hour" by Field Division.

They're camping at Big Sur, sleeping in their car because they’re poor but trying to view it through a romantic lens, one Max hopes will be nostalgic someday. They’re penned in by trees and rocks but she doesn’t feel trapped for once. Not like she does at rest stops and along highways, driving everywhere and nowhere.

"We'll be, like, together for fifteen years and still be doing this," Chloe said on the drive there, “Hopefully not broke as shit, though.”

“Yeah, ‘cause anyone can afford a house in our generation,” Max said back, elbow on the car windowsill and staring at the trees going by. The trees have been here for years, a luxury they don’t have.

“Shh, leave the economic dirty talk until later.”

Tomorrow they head east, to Away, where David just moved. It was Chloe’s idea, which Max is shocked by but maybe less so the more she thinks of their softening phone conversations. She’s glad for them. There is no plan after Away.

Chloe is snoring softly against the window when Max quietly opens the door and slips outside. The night is warm and full of the sound of insects; she makes her way with her feet, sliding them in front of her to feel for anything to trip over. Big Sur has been welcoming so far but she doesn’t trust it just yet.

She makes her way to the edge of the trees, leaning against one and sliding down it though the bark practically leaves grooves down her back. She breathes. She tries to breathe. It helps.

When she goes back to the car she still can’t sleep.

*

The breeze comes over the ocean and picks up Chloe’s longer hair, blowing it across her face and making her curse under her breath. Max clicks a barrette at her again but Chloe waves her off, saying it’s not middle school anymore.

Max touches her arm and takes her hand instead as they continue to walk down the beach.

“It’s beautiful,” Max murmurs, her voice carrying away on the same breeze like their tourism brochure did, floating away on the water.

“It’s fucked up,” Chloe says, “but I’m so glad we got out of that town.”

Max swallows. She doesn’t ask if it was the right choice; it was when she feels Chloe in her arms and when she laughs at something Max said about a car driving like a jerk. Max will spend the rest of her life keeping it the right choice.

*

They point the truck to Away, and Chloe speeds as usual. She wants to teach Max to drive the truck but Max doesn’t trust it either, seeing as how it can be turned on by inserting a screwdriver as if it were a key. Still, it’s reliable enough, like Chloe is becoming. Like Max was.

“If he goes back to normal, I’m leaving,” Chloe says for the thousandth time. It was her idea to go, after a million requests from him, but old memories fade slowly.

“Don’t worry, I don’t think he can hide cameras in that trailer.” He sent them a photo when he bought it, so excited for the first time in ever, and still he was subdued like a halo around the moon.

“God, can you imagine?” Chloe slaps the steering wheel and barks once in laughter.

*

Max tells herself it’ll be okay someday, every day. Maybe someday, with Chloe there, she’ll believe it.


End file.
